<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Digital: techTribe launches recruitment by referral</B></FONT>

IT networking portal techTribe announced a new service, frontFoot, on Tuesday. The recruitment service is for middle management and higher level jobs in the IT knowledge industry (comprising IT outsourcing, marketing, financial services and IT-enabled services), which pay a salary of more than Rs 8-10 lakh annually.

The system works on referrals among techTribe’s one lakh-odd members. So, a company puts up a job requirement on techTribe and any techTriber can refer another member for the job. The candidate cannot apply directly for the job, but can approve the referrals he receives. There’s another incentive for this exercise besides goodwill – cash. If the candidate is finally hired, techTribe pays the referrer Rs 10,000 and the person who invited the candidate to the network, Rs 2,000.

The final candidate is chosen on the basis of calculated factors such as Candidate Quality, Referral Quality, Relationship (between the members), Endorsements and Track Record (of the candidate). It automatically selects the most suitable and credible candidates for the company.

techTribe is choosing its companies very carefully for now. Four companies that are placing their jobs on techTribe are iGate, Morgan Stanley, GenPact and CoreObjects. Agarwal refused to reveal the contractual agreements with these companies, saying that techTribe is charging a commission rate that is less than the industry standard of 8.3-12 per cent.

techTribe has filed for a patent for the frontFoot model, and hopes to break even by the end of the year.

After its launch in September 2006, this is the first step the company has taken to monetise the portal. Agarwal ruled out ads in the near future, but added that other revenue models would be based on the activities of the community’s members.